At campaign stops in Vancouver in September, I asked Liberal leader Justin Trudeau and NDP leader Tom Mulcair whether their promises to spend billions of dollars on transit projects, like the proposed Broadway subway and Surrey LRT, could jeopardize public finances and divert funds from healthcare and the environment without enacting new controls to prevent the possibility of cost overruns and corruption.

“The federal government shouldn’t be in the business of picking or choosing projects or micro-managing bids. The federal government needs to be in the business of being a real partner putting money on the table so provinces and municipalities can get the infrastructure that Canadians need to be more productive and have a better quality of life built.

“Openness and transparency is what Canadians expect of their governments, they’ve had 10 years of the most secretive government in Canada’s history with Mr. Harper and that’s why sunshine being the best disinfectant means that we’re actually going to be answering Canadians’ call for better government through openness, transparency and integrity. Having a Prime Minister that tells the truth will be a nice change.”

“I think that you’re raising such an important question that deserves a full answer. Anything our government does is going to be open and transparent and that’s the approach I’ve always taken, in my time around the cabinet table, when I was a minister we didn’t have to fight every step of the way to try to keep things secret, we put as much as we could above board and open that we posted. That’s the same approach I take. I had to fight against the government and with Kevin Page for him to get the information he was allowed to get as Parliamentary Budget Officer.

“It’s an overarching obligation every government has to be open and transparent. The point that we’re trying to make is we have a long-term plan, as opposed to Justin Trudeau’s short-term thinking. His short-term thinking sees him spending tens of billions of dollars more per year but only for a few years and then a black hole. A sudden blip. No plan or explanation of how he’s going to do that.

“Don’t forget these are obligations that are incumbent upon all governments at all levels to make sure that the process is open, and that the bidding is clean, and that the process is followed properly. That’s not something that changes with the wind or on the backs of a single company.”